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Kurdish security forces head to Alton Kupri town, on the outskirts of Irbil, Iraq, Friday Oct. 20, 2017. Iraqi and Kurdish forces are exchanging fire at the border between federal and Kurdish lands, days after Kurds withdrew from disputed territories across northern Iraq. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

The Iraqi Kurds’ dreams of independence, endorsed by a referendum last month, have come to a crushing halt.

Last week the hostile Baghdad government clawed back the key oil town of Kirkuk from Kurdish forces. Kurds, American allies, feel that Washington betrayed them by taking the side of Baghdad. There is some truth to the claim but the Kurds also were betrayed from within.

More important is how Washington deals with the Kurdish issue in the future. Kurdish fighters have been crucial U.S. allies against the Islamic State. That battle is almost ended. .

How the United States treats its Kurdish friends will signal whether the Trump team has a long-term strategy to help keep the region stable. If it doesn’t, the biggest victor will be Iran.

No Mideast group deserves self-determination more than the Kurds. They were promised independence by the great powers after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Instead, World War I allies divided their mountainous lands among Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The United States bears much responsibility for the Iraqi Kurds’ recent gallop toward independence. After the 1991 Gulf War, Washington established a no-fly zone over Iraqi Kurdistan that enabled them to establish an autonomous zone. Following Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, the 6 million Kurds set up their own Kurdish regional government, or KRG.

When Islamic State troops pushed into Iraq in 2014 as Iraqi forces fled, the Kurds defended their region. They rolled back the ISIS with support from U.S. airpower.

As for Kirkuk, this multiethnic city surrounded by rich oil fields is dear to the Kurdish psyche and wallet. But, as I witnessed firsthand in 1991, Saddam drove thousands of Kurds out of the city and resettled their districts with Iraqi Arabs. Kurds took back Kirkuk from the Islamic State.

Kirkuk’s fate was supposed to be decided by a referendum no later than 2007. But the Baghdad government never scheduled the vote, nor did it conduct serious negotiations with Kurdish leaders. The KRG’s frustration helped drive the decision to hold the referendum.

The Baghdad government, along with neighboring Turkey and Iran, all opposed the referendum. So did Washington. But the Kurds argued that it would give them leverage in bargaining with Baghdad. The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said it would only talk if Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani rescinded the referendum. That he would not do.

Leaders of one faction in Kurdistan made a deal with Baghdad and told their forces to pull back from Kirkuk without informing Barzani. So Kirkuk fell because of Kurdish disunion.

“The referendum is over and belongs in the past,” crowed Abadi. But will the Iraqi government finally negotiate with the KRG over territory and oil?

In years past, U.S. diplomats proved crucial in mediating disputes between Iraqi Kurds and Baghdad. Yet President Trump has shown little interest in diplomacy. Disinterest in Washington is the first step to betrayal of our Kurdish allies.

Tehran is eager to end the U.S. presence in Iraq and to dominate Baghdad.

“It behooves the United States to push Abadi to sit down and negotiate,” says Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the KRG representative in Washington.

“Now is the time to get everyone around the table,” Abdul Rahman adds. “Let’s get to talking.”

Betrayal may be easier, but a record of abandoning one’s allies can come to haunt the betrayer. So the time for Washington to act on the Kurdish question is now.

TRUDY RUBIN is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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